Abstract

The National Construction Service (NCS) was established as an emergency program by the government of Korea in 1969 to provide work for the unemployed or underemployed rural population by providing food supplied under the United States PL 480 program. The NCS focused mostly on public works projects such as reforestation, irrigation, flood control and road construction. This multi-purpose program, designed to provide relief food to the hungry, unemployed rural population on land resources development, made a very significant contribution to improvement in agricultural land resources. The project also awakened in the population a self-help spirit and cooperative team work which eventually led to the spread of the New Community Movement and gradual permeation of democratic practices at the grassroots level. In order to build up cadres for the NCS operation, the government recruited university graduates as project leaders. The 2000 new recruits were trained as NCS participants to supervise and promote the coordination necessary for successful program implementation. Program planning and implementation problems included effectively organizing the administrative machinery and choice of techniques and the extent to which one should depend on labor-intensive programs.

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This record was last updated on 07/01/2016 and may not reflect the most current and accurate biomedical/scientific data available from NLM.
The corresponding record at NLM can be accessed at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12336528